After PM Modi, a meeting with RSS: BJP ministers in Maharashtra to discuss ‘core issues’ with Sangh as local body polls loom

A senior RSS functionary who did not wish to be named said, “The purpose of the meeting between the RSS and BJP ministers is to deliberate at length on the core issues that are an integral aspect of the RSS, including Hindutva. Along with that several core issues that directly or indirectly concern society and people will be discussed.” From alleged atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh to the movement of undocumented migrants across borders, several issues are set to be discussed at the meeting.

A senior Cabinet Minister from the BJP said, “The majority of us have been groomed in the RSS. The Sangh is our mentor. In the past too, we have had interaction with RSS leaders. The session is to appraise each other about our plans and programmes and coordinate better. Whether it is the RSS or the BJP, the goal is the same: serving people and ensuring development reaches the last man. Hindutva is integral to the RSS, the BJP, and all the frontal organisations. It has been well defined long ago.”

An RSS office-bearer at its headquarters in Nagpur said, “The RSS has always worked quietly. It never works on a short-term agenda to get someone elected or defeated. It relentlessly pursues a larger goal, keeping national interest in mind and sight.”

Another Sangh source said, “We don’t interfere in the working of the party. All the decisions taken by them may not be to our liking. What works to our advantage is having a political front at the Centre and in the state that shares a common ideology. The dialogue between the RSS and BJP is an ongoing process that helps both provided theirs is a strong and capable leadership.”

Though the RSS officially maintains it is a social organisation whose agenda is cultural nationalism and that it does not get involved in politics, its workers have worked on the ground for the BJP and several of its leaders are often deputed in the BJP. After the BJP and the Mahayuti alliance’s poor performance in last year’s Lok Sabha elections, when it collectively won just 17 of the state’s 48 Lok Sabha constituencies. One of the reasons for the BJP’s poor showing was said to be poor coordination with the Sangh. And with the state itself at stake, the BJP worked to improve its ties with its parent organisation and the effort was led by Devendra Fadnavis who, in December, returned as the Chief Minister. Fadnavis held at least half a dozen meetings with RSS leaders to discuss and plan the Assembly poll campaign in which the BJP won 132 of the 149 seats it contested.

“We appealed to organisations working under our ideological umbrella that if you don’t have to come into politics, don’t come, but nationalist forces will have to respond to anarchist forces and you will have to talk against anarchy,” Fadnavis told The Indian Express during the Assembly poll campaign. “Today, they have helped us and because of their help, they have countered the Bharat Jodo narrative of the anarchist forces. It started immediately after the Lok Sabha results in June. We kept meeting with them but this time we made a special appeal to the nationalist forces.”

At present, more than 35 frontal organisations under the RSS umbrella are active in diverse fields and with the BJP in power in the state and at the Centre, the Sangh’s priorities are likely to receive preference.